CDO — Global Pharma & Biotech practice (based Continental Europe)

Position overview

Gladwin International Leadership Advisors is representing a confidential organisation in Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology on a senior CDO leadership mandate anchored in Continental Europe.

This is a country CEO / MD-class mandate with board- and headquarters-facing accountability for strategy execution, regulatory relationships, and brand in-market.

This is a role for someone who has already led through at least one major inflection: restructuring, M&A, regulatory reset, or category shift.

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Context you will inherit

• Market & sector: R&D and innovation leadership — transitioning from generic-follow business models to differentiated, IP-rich innovation pipelines requires a different type of scientific and commercial leadership
• Geographic spine: Primary hub Continental Europe with reporting lines into global / regional matrix partners.
• Organisation stage: Growth agenda collides with legacy cost base; productivity and automation are board-level topics, not staff functions.
• Stakeholders: Owners may include PE operating partners, a promoter family office, or public-market investors — each with different tempo and KPIs.
• Secondary lens: Market access and pricing — as governments globally drive price controls, finding leaders who can manage market access, pricing strategy, and government affairs with sophistication

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The mandate (12–24 month arc)

1. Executive dashboards: Replace vanity metrics with a tight set of KPIs the CEO and CFO trust.
2. Customer data: Unify identity and consent where fragmentation hurts personalisation or compliance.
3. Operational analytics: Use data to improve unit economics in operations — yield, utilisation, leakage.
4. Partnership with IT: Clarify split between CDO-owned capabilities and CIO-owned platforms.
5. Regulatory reporting: Where applicable, reduce manual reconciliation through better lineage and controls.
6. Talent: Hire leaders who can translate statistical insight into executive decisions — not only build models.

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Responsibilities (representative)

• Reduce regulatory and audit pain on data lineage, privacy, and retention.
• Monetise or operationalise data assets where ethically and legally sound.
• Hire and retain data science and engineering talent in competitive markets.
• Align metrics definitions across finance, operations, and commercial teams.
• Lead MDM and reference data programmes where fragmentation blocks decisions.

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Leadership profile

• Judgment: High signal-to-noise under pressure; ethical clarity; willingness to halt initiatives that break risk appetite.
• Education: Strong undergraduate grounding; MBA / advanced degree / professional qualification common at this level.
• Trusted metrics: Examples where data changed capital or operating decisions in Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology.
• Communication: Executive presence in English; additional languages valued where market-relevant.
• Geographic muscle: Deep experience leading in or from Continental Europe with credible local stakeholder judgment.

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Team & culture

The organisation runs hot — ambitious targets and thin buffers. You need to channel energy into sustainable rhythms: predictable planning, honest risk surfacing, and recovery time for teams after major pushes.

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Success measures (examples)

• Financial: Revenue and margin vs. plan; cash conversion; capital efficiency.
• Strategic: Share in priority segments; customer retention in anchor accounts; milestone delivery on transformation.
• People: Engagement trends; regrettable attrition in critical roles; diversity of succession slate.
• Risk: Audit and regulatory outcomes; conduct events; operational resilience metrics.

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First 90 days (orientation arc)

• Days 1–30: Shadow key customer journeys or operations — paper over slides where reality diverges.
• Days 30–60: Cut or pause low-value projects freeing capacity for strategic work.
• Days 60–90: Publish first integrated forecast or plan under your ownership — even if directional.
• Build trust with risk, legal, and audit through transparency — surprises erode licence to move fast.
• Pick one cultural signal (e.g. meeting hygiene, promotion criteria) and model it relentlessly.

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Stakeholder map (illustrative)

• Internal: Matrix of global product houses and local P&L; tension is normal — your role is to broker trade-offs with data.
• External: Customers who influence reference deals; government or industry bodies in regulated sectors.
• Capital providers: Banks, sponsors, or minority investors — each needs a slightly different narrative on risk.

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Travel & mobility

Travel weighted to priority markets and quarterly global or regional forums; flexibility for crisis windows.

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Compensation

Competitive CDO compensation for Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology leadership: cash, incentive, benefits, and potential equity or carry (case-dependent). Discussed with finalists only.

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Application process

Gladwin International is managing this search confidentially. Shortlisted candidates will engage in structured conversations with the firm’s partners before client introduction. Please apply through the careers portal with a concise note on why this geography, sector, and remit fit your trajectory.

We review every submission personally; unsolicited outreach to the end client is discouraged and may disqualify candidacy.

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Reference: pharmaceuticals-biotech · CDO · Continental Europe · Gladwin International Leadership Advisors